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Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Freedom, Protection, and the Mixing Bowl: Vegan Lemon Lemon Cupcakes

My son has been my companion in the kitchen since he was born. I have vivid memories of him as a small blob-like baby perched in his car seat, watching me make apple pie as I talked to him, flashing measuring cups, naming ingredients, dancing to some CD or another. And now, even though he often has better things to do (like play Legos, for example), when I call him from the kitchen, he often comes to dump things into the mixing bowl, to stir or to turn on the mixer, and to lick the beaters.

My husband and I had a disagreement recently about whether or not I. should be allowed to use the stand mixer on his own. I wouldn't exactly call it "unsupervised," but there are times when I let him turn the mixer on by himself as I'm rummaging in the cupboards to get something. S. thinks that this is not a good idea; that I. will stick his hands or arms into the mixer, and there will be disaster. I feel like I've given him enough instructions and that he has good enough instincts that he can be trusted with the mixer now. And while occasionally there is flour everywhere when he turns it on, he has not yet let me down, and he usually starts it at the lowest speed. Still, S. does have a point; I. has occasionally done bizarre, impulsive things (like stick a bead up his nose), despite his usual rational behavior.

The question is, at what point do you decide that a child is ready for certain kinds of freedom--freedom that could give them a chance to offer their talents to the world? For how long do you protect them? What do you do to make sure that their encounters with others are as safe as possible--that they don't hurt themselves or other people?

The same kind of question comes up when we let people--even adults--use any social networking tool. Mel recently called my attention (via the Prompt-ly list) to a project called The Listserve, which, when it reaches 10,000 subscribers (and it just has) will allow one of its subscribers each day to send an email, consisting of whatever they want, to the list. The difference here, of course, is that while I have some sense of how my son will operate the mixing bowl, we have no idea who the other 9,999+ subscribers are, and how they will use this common tool. Like the things that come from the stand mixer, a lot of good could come from this list. New ideas. Community. Global goodwill. Rallying around social justice projects. It could help to overcome the silo-experience of social media, where we find ourselves talking to friend lists and reading blogs and following pinterest boards full of people who are just like us. Then again, the users could send self-promoting advertisements. They could send hate speech. They could use it for cyber-bullying. They could send suicide notes (though there's a hopeful article here from a few years back about how people responded to a suicide note on PostSecret; one hopes that the response would be similarly compassionate and constructive). There's nothing on the site to indicate that the site owner will censor any email, no policy about what will or will not get sent (though an article I read says they will vet email for things like porn or viruses).

When I've been reading around to see what other people think of the project, it seems more like people are thinking about what they're going to say, rather than what they're going to get. It's a chance for people to say something with an audience who may actually listen, to say something that will--presumably--not get "lost" in the social media chatter. But what does that focus on authorship say about being a responsible reader? Are we so self-absorbed that we're not even worrying about what other people might say, but are, instead, interested in our own 15 minutes (or so) of fame?

On the one hand, I think that the responsibility for the emails that get sent will rest on the shoulders of the project owners, five masters' students at NYU. Sort of like (though I realize that the analogy is far from perfect) giving your five-year-old power to turn on the stand mixer. If you're going to set him loose, even if you're supervising from across the kitchen, you should make sure he's ready to handle that kind of responsibility. You should give him training. You should be prepared to spring into action if something goes awry. (None of this, I should add, is evident from TheListserve's site.) But maybe the analogy is more appropriate when conceived this way: the makers of the stand mixer, which is a tool, are not responsible for the quality of my cake, or for my five-year-old's fingers. I also think that the responsibility rests on the users. After all, they've signed up for this experience. They've elected membership in this haphazard "community," for better or worse. They are inviting the possibility of radical difference into their inboxes. And opening yourself up to contact with radical difference entails taking a risk.

Maybe some people will say some awful things. I suspect that most of them won't. It's certainly an interesting experiment in social nature.

I signed up for the list. Though I don't typically solicit email, I'm curious. And a pretty large part of me hopes I don't get picked to say something to the world, because I'm not sure I have a gem of wisdom to pass on just yet. I'm the kind of person who sits through many meetings before I speak up, and what I have to say is usually something I've been mulling over for quite some time. I suspect I'd say something about compassion and social justice, and perhaps I'd hatch a project to promote those things, but I'm not going to commit to that today.

What do you think? Who should be responsible for what gets posted to the listserve? Would you sign up? And if you got chosen to speak, what would you say?

And: these cupcakes are made with a whisk, for those days when the stand mixer really does feel too risky.

Preheat over at 350 degrees, line pan with cupcake liners. Stir together oil, sugar, yogurt, and soy milk. Add the lemon juice, zest, and vanilla. Mix to combine. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour to the liquid mixture in two batches, mixing very well in between each addition. Fill the cupcake liners 1/2 to 3/4 of the way full and bake for 20-22 minutes. Let cool, then frost.

In a bowl, cream the shortening and margarine and then add the sugar 1/2 cup at a time. After each sugar addition, add a splash of lemon juice and beat well with mixer. Add vanilla and lemon extracts and beat for another 3-5 minutes until smooth and fluffy.

9 comments:

This is such a great post. I finally signed up after talking to one of the 5 list owners via email a few days ago. He made me believe that he is taking the responsibility to heart. Somewhat. I'm flip flopping on that, but I figure I can always unsubscribe. I'm going to give the Listserve at least three emails before I judge it.

I'm still waiting a reply, but I asked him why there couldn't be an option for those who want to read but who never want to be picked. I know you could reject the offer if your name is chosen, but some people don't even want to have to do that.

This is a really big question, about when to trust yourself, those around you, and fat itself. I've been having these thoughts recently, about streets that they will be able to cross without me sometime soon, and being able to leave them home for short errands. How will I know when it's time?

I love how you tied this into pondering about ListServe. And into cupcakes :-)

Thanks. :) And weird, isn't it? N. has just started to walk for real, and suddenly I'm having to gauge how far I can let her go before I have to run after her ... the distance is always changing. I don't think we ever know for sure. :)

I often wonder the same thing, I want munchkin to sense the pride in doing something by herself. but i worry that the 'naughty wind' will blow and she will end up doing something stupid and dangerous. the last time the naughty wind blew we were at the shops at the checkout and munchkin decided to do acrobatics ( while waiting for mummy to pay the bill) on a little didiving rail between checkouts and ended up babging her head really hard oon the slate floor. just keep re evaluating i always pull the reighns back in if munchkin is tired or having a rough day but quickly let them back out when they are behaving well.take care

Thanks. I suspect that if they're in a master's program, they've been having lots of conversations about responsibility ... at least, I hope so. Some of what I read said that it sounded like a great idea, but that it will probably be a flop. I think at least three chances seems fair.

And interesting ... maybe he thinks that too many people would opt out of saying something, and that they'd be more likely to do it if they didn't have the obvious chance to "opt out"? We often used that trick in student programs ... pretending that opting in was the only option. It worked surprisingly well.

You know your own son. I would NOT trust my sons to do anything mechanical of this nature by themselves, because they are evil ;) Oh, the things they have done. I think that this works with the Listserve as well. I know my own kids and the damage they can do, it makes me leery of trusting others with even the most innocuous tools. Long, long ago in an infertility galaxy far, far away we used bulletin boards to reach out to each other. There were several times where all hell broke loose, and mediation was necessary to calm things down. What happens when someone puts sh*t in the blender and turns it on w/o putting on the lid? I have had enough drama without opening up my email box to more of it.